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NewsApr 19, 2019

Amy Green Deines selected as new Lesley Art + Design dean

Detroit-area sculptor and academic brings extensive experience in community outreach and fostering innovative arts centers

Lunder Arts Center at night

Amy Green Deines was recently selected as the new dean of our College of Art and Design. She will begin her tenure in July, succeeding Dean Richard Zauft, who is retiring at the end of the academic year.

Photograph of new College of Art and Design Dean Amy Green Deines leaning up against a wall.
Dean Amy Green Deines.

Deines brings to Lesley 20 years of experience in higher education, most recently at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where she served as dean and chief academic officer. Prior to her time at Cranbrook, Deines served in multiple roles at Lawrence Technological University’s (LTU) College of Architecture and Design, including associate dean of the college, and dean of graduate programs.

While at LTU’s College of Architecture and Design, Deines raised $1.5 million to create the Detroit Center for Design and Technology, which opened in the spring of 2016. As a destination for design thinking, serving college and high school students, young and seasoned professionals, architects, artists, designers, innovators and entrepreneurs, the center is a place where students and faculty can collaborate with the broader community on issues that impact everyone.

“Amy is a talented design professional with a successful track record in arts education,” said Dr. Margaret Everett, Lesley University provost and vice president of Academic Affairs. “We are thrilled that she will be joining our talented faculty and students at a time of great energy and growth for the College of Art and Design.”

Deines regularly lectures and participates in reviews at the Graduate School of Design of Design at Harvard, Yale School of Architecture, and the School at the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as international academies. Amy earned her BFA in design from Wayne State University and her master of architecture from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

“I passionately support the legacy and mission of Lesley, which is committed to equity and diversity within higher education,” Deines said. “Art and design education should be seen as the conversation that creates our cultures. To be absent from the conversation, to avoid participation, is to miss the beat.”

Deines added, “Being situated within a prestigious and academic landscape such as Cambridge affords Lesley’s College of Art and Design an amazing opportunity to define the role of artists and designers within society.”

Deines has long practiced at the intersection of philanthropy, education and design. As a seasoned educator, administrator and designer, she brings to Lesley a unique expertise, as well as organizational vision and a passion for community art and associated partnerships. Her experience in architectural and design education, coupled with her dedication to exposing university students to the role and responsibility of an artist, positions her well to lead the College of Art and Design in this phase of its august, more-than-century-old history.

Lesley University’s College of Art and Design — the only New England art and design school to offer a visual effects program — shapes the careers of professional artists and designers in state-of-the-art facilities and a diverse array of exhibition spaces, and through extensive community partnerships within the context of a university setting. Rigorous opportunities for critical inquiry, exploration and experimentation, as well as engaged critique, are the hallmarks of the College of Art and Design experience.